The Cult of Neurolinguistic Programming

What if the right words could rewire your brain… or at least make you feel like they did? This week, Amanda is joined by journalists and hosts of the podcast Mind Games, Alice Hines (@alicehines_) and Zoë Lescaze (@zoelescaze), to unpack the cult of neurolinguistic programming, the self-improvement framework that promises transformation through language, mindset shifts, and a little bit of psychological sleight of hand. They dig into how NLP showed up inside NXIVM and explore why these techniques can feel genuinely helpful in everyday life, and how the line between self-help and manipulation often comes down to who’s in charge. Amanda even tries an NLP session herself, which is equal parts intriguing and slightly unsettling and begs the question: is NLP a useful set of tools… or a very persuasive vibe?

You can listen to The Cult of Neurolinguistic Programming online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

The Cult of Neurolinguistic Programming is an episode from Sounds Like A Cult by Studio71.

This episode is 62:12 long.

This episode was published on Apr 21, 2026.

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